There are known in the prior art multi-price motor driven merchandisers which are adapted to vend a wide variety of articles at a wide range of prices. One machine of this type is shown in U.S. Pat. application Ser. No. 146,313, filed May 5, 1980 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,317,604. These machines incorporate price setting matrixes associated with multi-price coin mechanisms.
While these matrixes are effective for setting different purchase prices for the various articles, they embody a major disadvantage in that they contain a multiplicity of diodes, the failure of one of which may result in the failure of many others owing to the resulting excessive current flow through the components of the merchandiser. Often, a simple diode failure can cause massive destruction to the price matrix.